UA-related FAQs

YourUAusername@alaska.edu

If you are unfamiliar with what we mean by YourUAusername, it is essentially the initials of your First and Middle names combined with your full Last name (FMLast.) There are some exceptions that include a number at the end (the number makes it unique when there are other persons with the same UAusername.) If you don't know what yours is, you can look it up online.

The university, UAF in particular, has a vast number of disparate email systems. OIT is first looking at consolidating Statewide and UAF email. Once that is complete, we will look at consolidating with UAF department-specific email servers.

There is a business need for a single, official, reliable email address that can be used for university business communications.

In addition, user demand for increasing email storage and platform and location independent mail services has necessitated a look at what we were currently doing for email.

We explored two major providers of email services to universities: Microsoft.edu and Google Applications for Education. Each of these services is free to the university. MS Live was taken out of consideration having failed several key requirements: No SSL, No IMAP, Forced co-branding, shared apps require Microsoft Office license (UA students are not currently licensed...) and Microsoft Live only provided accounts for students, not faculty or staff. That left Google in the running.

Once we converted to Google, the savings were significant with an initial savings of approximately $90,000 in software costs and longer term hardware costs … in the neighborhood of $150,000. The savings have been redirected toward other projects that have been backlogged due to lack of resources and manpower. Personnel are still responsible for all account creation, maintenance, and termination, but time previously allocated to hardware and software maintenance have been reallocated to other projects needing attention.

(This is only a partial list, as there are hundreds to date, with over 7 million active education users as of July 2009).
Clemson University
Northwestern University
Abilene Christian University
Arizona State University
University of Southern California
University of North Carolina
Lakehead University
Vanderbilt University
Utah State
George Washington University
University of Notre Dame
Also See: Google Applications for Education Customers

There are two passwords associated with your Google Apps @ UA account to protect your UA password. You will use your UA password to log into Google’s web-based applications through the UA login gateway, or authentication system. You will use a separate Google-side password to access non-web-based services, such as getting your email on a mobile phone, Google Talk, or with an email program like Thunderbird, Mac Mail, Outlook, or Entourage.

That is always a concern. If all Internet connections to the lower 48 go down, we will be temporarily without email access. While we have had a few outages in the last couple of years, they have been temporary. As part of our business case, we weighed the likelihood and length of a possible outage with that of any cost savings we may see by outsourcing. The survey results indicated that most individuals could go a full day without email before business practices were impacted.

Google has a solution called Google Offline available for the Google Chrome browser. This addon acts as sort of an offline webmail client and stores your incoming and outgoing emails until internet access is restored. You can find the Chrome addon by going into your webmail settings and clicking on the Offline tab.

As a method to deter spam, Google has employed a sending limit from all Google Apps for Education accounts of 2000 messages within a 24 hour period. Whether you have addressed the same email to 2000 recipients, or sent 2000 separate messages within a day, the rule still applies. If you breach that boundry, Google will stop your account from sending mail for 24 hours.

If you use a POP or IMAP client (Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, e.g.), you may only send a message to 100 people at a time. Your account should be re-enabled within 24 hours.

YourUAusername@alaska.edu

If you are unfamiliar with what we mean by YourUAusername, it is essentially the initials of your First and Middle names combined with your full Last name (FMLast.) There are some exceptions that include a number at the end (the number makes it unique when there are other persons with the same UAusername.) If you don't know what yours is, you can look it up online.

We have seen several email attempts lately that attempt to get users to reply with their email account and password.

This is a reminder that the University of Alaska will NEVER ask you to provide any account information like passwords through an email.

Identity thieves use a technique known as phishing - a highly targeted email scam
designed to acquire personal and other sensitive information, like passwords, from unsuspecting readers.

These phishing emails appear to come from an organization you trust or have a relationship with,
such as your bank or in this case University. Keep in mind that legitimate organizations do not ask for information via email.

The University of Alaska Office of Information Technology, OIT, and the UAA IT advises that you NEVER send personally identifiable information in an email to anyone. Any emails requesting that type of information should be reported using the Report Phishing option, outlined in the following article.

Google has created a detailed article on detecting and reporting phishing attempts. The University highly recommends email users to read this article and follow these procedures when an email of this nature is received.

Now, all mail destined for your account will be forwarded to the address you selected in step 5.

Note for University Employees: If you work in a position that may communicate sensitive/private information, forwarding your email to another account is strongly discouraged for security reasons. If you are unsure if you should forward your email or not, please check with your supervisor, or the OIT Support Center.

A feature is available to Google Apps @ UA customers called Account Delegation. This enables account holders to permit access to their email to other Google accounts.

For example, a director can permit their assistant to access mail to coordinate scheduling, work out travel, et cetera without having to provide the assistant the secure password.

To enable this feature, first log in to your email account. Go into Settings, and click the Accounts tab. There is a section entitled "Grant access to your account", with a link to click to begin the process.

Once you click on that link, a small pop up window will appear, asking for you to enter the address of the Google account you wish to allow access. Once you fill in the address, and click "Next Step", an email is generated and automatically sent to that account, containing a link for them to click on to verify the access.

Once they confirm, they will be able to log in to your account, using their password.

To switch to that account, just as with the multiple sign in, click the down arrow next to your email address in the top right. Select the other account to switch inboxes. You can also separate them by using different tabs in the same browser window, or different browser windows according to your preference.

Google Mail recognises that the incoming message is identical to the copy in your Sent Items and ignores the duplicate. This is a part of Google's threading feature in the web client when you post a reply, your reply is threaded in with other's responses. This is a system feature and can not be disabled.

Each Google Apps @ UA user is automatically allotted 30 gigabytes of space (increases daily). The possibility exists that some individuals will need more space. Google currently offers an option for educational users to increase that space for a fee. To find out more, scroll to the bottom of your UA webmail and click on "Manage" at the bottom of the page near your usage stats.

Google's total attachment limit is 25mb. UAF has always had a 15mb attachment limit, where as SW email has previously been unlimited. Attachments larger than 25mb will not send through Google Apps @ UA.

There is also File Sender by Internet 2. http://www.internet2.edu/products-services/filesender/

Yes. You can switch between accounts or add accounts to a browser session by clicking your username on the upper right-hand corner. Please note that account switching is not supported by Google Drive and the account you sign in with first will be used by Google Drive.

Within our Google Apps domain (@alaska.edu), TLS 1.0 is enforced. TLS 1.0 is the current standard in web security. Financial institutions such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and many banks that allow for online account access have endorsed TLS 1.0 for commerce over the Internet.

Forwards and vacation messages in your old UAF or SW email account will no longer function once you have your new Google Apps @ UA email account. Users should remove these options and place them in their new Google Apps @ UA email account. Use the links below to set these options in Google Apps @ UA.

Google Mail allows you to create sub-labels to create a folder-like structure. If you want to move a bunch of labels under a new label, create the new label, and edit each label so that it is nested under the new label.

Other tips:
Consider consolidating some of your labels, if possible.
Consider color coding groupings of similar labels. Also, rename labels so they are organized alphabetically, according to the same group, so groups of colors appear in conjunction with label titles.
Remember, Labels maintenance takes place in Settings under Labels.

To rearrange your labels so they are not all hidden in the drop down area on the left, go into Settings/Labels and select Show to make that label always appear in the upper left section.

They do not ‘read’ your email per se. For use in targeted advertising on their other sites, and if your mail is not encrypted, software (not a person) does scan your mail and compile keywords for advertising. For example, if the software looks at 100 emails and identifies the word “Doritos” or “camping” 50 times, they will use that data for advertising on their other sites.

In Google Chrome, all you need to do is log into your webmail account, you should see an overlapping double diamond icon on the right side of the address bar. Click the double-diamonds and set it to allow opening email links.

In order to access and use all of the features Google has to offer, including all of the Google Labs features within Google mail, you must use a currently supported browser. A currently supported browser is a browser that is 3 versions behind the latest version update. A non-current browser may load in basic HTML mode in which alot of features are missing.

Google Mail Contacts

These 5 steps take less than 10 minutes, and you only have to do this once...

1) First, create a label you can use to identify emails sent to your old account:

Go to *Settings *and click the *Labels *tab*.* Create a new label that says
something like "Legacy Mail", "Sent to old email address", or whatever makes
sense to you.

2) Next, we will activate the *Canned Response* Google Lab function, and
create an email message to automatically send (only) to those using your old
address:

-While in *Settings* and in the *Labs* tab enable *Canned Response* lab.
Save this. (*Canned Response* allows you to automatically send the notice
that you are going to write next.)
-Now write your auto-reply message notifying people of your new email
address
-Select *Compose Mail* and create a message with info about your change of

address. It could say something like:

This is an automated reply to let you know that you sent an eMail to my old
address (<your old address here>) As you may know, the university is
changing eMail services to Google Apps for

You can export your SquirrelMail address book from the Addresses menu. Ensure that the field delimiter is set to "Comma (,)", and the text delimiter is set to "Double quotes(")". Once you click the "Export to CSV File" button, you will begin to download the SquirrelMail address book file to your computer. Once logged in to Google Apps @ UA, from Contacts, click the Import link at top right, click the Browse button, select the file you just downloaded from SquirrelMail, and click the Import button.

Here are some general directions to follow, though instructions may vary by version. For more detailed instructions, open 'Help' in Outlook or Outlook Express and type 'export' in the search box. Look for topics that include 'export wizard,' 'export information,' 'exporting contacts' or 'exporting address book contacts' in the title.

Google Calendar FAQs

Yes, however, ideally they should have a Google account, either @gmail.com or another institution using a private edition of Google Apps. This way, they will have a cross linked reference of the event that was created that will dynamically update should the event details change. They would also be allowed to view the guest list (if allowed), and other event details.

If the person does not have a Google account in any fashion, you can still invite them, and an email will be sent to them with the event details, asking them if they are going to the event or not, which is a link they can click on inside the email. The email also has an attached .ics file of the event details for them to import a copy of the event into their calendaring program of choice.

Since a solution for departmental accounts has not been presented, departmental calendars will need to be created under an individuals account. Whether that is the department head, or the department admin, is a decision to be made on a department by department basis.

When the calendar is created, under the Calendar sharing settings, you can elect to share ownership of the calendar to individuals by setting their access to "Make changes AND manage sharing". Then all parties concerned will have the calendar appear in their Google Calendar. If allowed, individuals can make changes throughout the calendar and can schedule meetings and invite others from that calendar.

Resources in Google Calendar are much like resources in Meeting Maker. Open use resources operate on a first come, first serve basis. You can book a resource, using the pick list from within Google Calendar. From the event details, you can use the 'Check guest and resource availability' link to display a list of available resources. From the pick list, you can choose an available resource from the where list below. Clicking the Add button will add the resource to your guest list, where you will be able to see the resource's availability. Once chosen, clicking OK will add the resource to your list of guests in the event details.

A word about "Controlled Use" resources: Certain resources are controlled by specific parties, known as resource custodians. For various reasons, scheduling of certain rooms can be restricted to specific people. A directory is being created of all controlled resources, and their custodians.

When someone leaves the University, or otherwise has their account deleted, certain things happen to their account once the account goes into the proverbial graveyard.

Within 5 days, their personal calendar will be deleted. All events scheduled in which that person is the owner are deleted within 5 days. The calendars that were originally created by the person who shared them are kept, along with all of the events. Any events that the account was a member of, the deleted account will be removed from the guest list.

All documents owned by the deleted account will be deleted from Google's systems within 5 days of the deletion of the account. This includes all spreadsheets, presentations, as well as documents. If it is a document that you may be concerned with, you can either create a copy of the document under your own account, or ask the document owner to change ownership. For calendars, as long as the person shared the calendar out to others, that calendar will remain forever, the only exception is the user's personal default calendar.

You'll always have just one primary calendar that's associated with your account, but you can have as many secondary calendars as you like. Keep in mind that you can create up to 25 calendars in one day. If you reach this limit, the system will time out with an error message and you'll be able to start again in 24 hours.

When you were invited, it is likely that the meeting creator used your vanity address when scheduling the meeting. Since Google does not know about your vanity address, it does not know that you already have a Google Apps @ UA account. Though you can still click on the links in the email to confirm or deny that you are going to the event, a record of it will not be placed in your calendar. You can still click the 'Add to Calendar' link at the top of the email that Google includes, however, you will not have access to the event list, or event details.

As a rule of thumb, it is always advisable to publish your uausername@alaska.edu email address as your preferred address. This way, the people you send mail to will get that email address in their address books, and will be able to add you to calendar events and invite you to collaborate on documents through Google Docs seamlessly.

When you send invites to users within the alaska.edu domain, Google Calendar knows that the time zone of the recipient is set in the time zone field in the primary calendar settings, and will adjust the meeting time to match the correct time in the corresponding time zone.

However, if a calendar invite is sent to someone with out a Google Account, such as a UAS, or UAA student, faculty, or staff member, Google will adjust the meeting time to the standard GMT time. When the recipient imports the ICS file into their calendaring application, the time will be adjusted according to their preferences.

Alaska Time, for your reference, is GMT -9, or GMT -8 with daylight savings is in effect.

Not exactly. You can create a single event and then duplicate it to one or more calendars within the event detailed view from the "More Actions" menu, then change the calendar the event is going to be created in.

In Google Calendar go to Settings/Calendar/Shared:Edit Settings/Calendar Details (located in upper tab) You will see a field further down the page that says "Embed this calendar".

Copy all of the code that is located in the white field of "Embed this Calendar".

Open your Roxen site in edit mode. On the page you would like the calendar to appear, select the Insert menu and choose Insert: RXML.

A dialog box appears. Paste the code into this box. Change width in code from 800 to 100%. Make sure height in code is at 400.

Save this and preview to see if it worked.

*On a side note, using a similar method, it is also possible to embed a Google Form and/or a Flicker feed into a Roxen site. As long as you have the code to embed, in Roxen use the Insert:RXML menu item to add.

Google Collaboration FAQs

When someone leaves the University, or otherwise has their account deleted, certain things happen to their account once the account goes into the proverbial graveyard.

Within 5 days, their personal calendar will be deleted. All events scheduled in which that person is the owner are deleted within 5 days. The calendars that were originally created by the person who shared them are kept, along with all of the events. Any events that the account was a member of, the deleted account will be removed from the guest list.

All documents owned by the deleted account will be deleted from Google's systems within 5 days of the deletion of the account. This includes all spreadsheets, presentations, as well as documents. If it is a document that you may be concerned with, you can either create a copy of the document under your own account, or ask the document owner to change ownership. For calendars, as long as the person shared the calendar out to others, that calendar will remain forever, the only exception is the user's personal default calendar.

User content is only scanned or indexed in the following cases to provide a high-quality service.

Some user data, such as email messages and documents, are scanned and indexed so users can search for information in their own Google Apps accounts.

Email is scanned so Google can perform spam filtering and virus detection.

Email is scanned so Google can display contextually relevant advertising in some circumstances.

Google does not scan or index data for any other purposes. Google's scanning and indexing procedures are automated and involve no human interaction. Except when users choose to publish information publicly, Google Apps data is not part of the general google.com index. Scanned information is not shared with third parties.

For Google Sites, each site is allowed an unlimited number of pages, and an unlimited (virtually) number of attachments (limited to 20Mb each). The catch is, the quota for Google Sites is shared to the whole UA domain. Currently, that cap is 100Gb. For the most current and details information this, see the Google Sites Help Center article on the subject.

Google Groups

Google Groups is a service from Google Apps @ UA that supports discussion groups. Anyone with a UA username can take part in Google Groups by requesting a Google Group. Membership in Google Groups is at no cost. Users can find discussion groups related to their departments or projects, and participate in threaded conversations, either through a web interface or by e-mail. Google Groups may be configured to archive postings. Users can also set up mailing list archives for e-mail lists that are hosted elsewhere.

I want to set up a group environment where all participants post emails to the group like a discussion.

Configure the group in Group Settings

Access
– Allow External Members

o Check this box if you want to include non alaska.edu addresses.

– Who can post messages?

o Choose Anyone can post

Email Delivery
– Subject Prefix

o Enter text that will start the subject line of your emails to this group.

– Replies to messages

o There are several choices here, it might be a good idea to have Users decide where their replies are sent, so they have the option of replying to the entire group or a certain author.

– Posting on behalf of the group

o Select this if you want to have the group email address appear to the sender – if this is a discussion forum style group, it is probably best to have this unchecked so each author is the sender.

Advanced
– Do Not Archive Messages To This Group

o Uncheck this box if you want sent messages to appear in the discussion section of the group.

Add members to your group in Invite MembersYou can either invite members to join or add them to the list directly Invite members by email

Invite members by Email
– Enter email addresses of people to invite
– Write an invitation message
– Click on Invite Members to send out the invitations

Add members directly
– Enter email addresses of people to add as members

o These can only be @alaska.edu addresses, others will need to be invited instead of added directly

– Write a welcome message if you want members to be notified of their membership

– Email Subscription Options

o Select the option that best fits the intent of this group. If this is a discussion list, probably choosing Send email for each message and update is the best choice. Click on Add members to finalize this action

Google Voice

Google Voice is a voicemail service from Google that enables users to send free text messages, customize their voicemail, read voicemail text transcript, and more. Google Voice enhances the existing capabilities of your phone, regardless of which phone or carrier you have - for free. Google Voice gives you a single phone number that rings all of your phones, saves your voicemail online, and transcribes your voicemail to text. Other cool features include the ability to listen in on messages while they're being left, block unwanted callers, and make cheap international calls.

Google Voice lets you choose a new phone number that stays with you, not a device or location. Your Google Voice number won't be your exisiting mobile device or landline number; you select a new number when signing up, which you can use for all your phones.

Ready to sign up for Google Voice? Here's how the process works, and some tips for choosing and setting up your number:

Go to the Google Voice website and sign in using your Google account. (You will need to use your entire email address for the username i.e. uausername@alaska.edu)

You'll be prompted to choose whether you want a new number or you want to use your existing number. Choose I want a new number.

Search for your new Google number and once you've chosen one click Continue.

Choose a PIN to use to retrieve your messages and access your Google Voice settings from any phone.

Enter a forwarding phone number (this is the phone that will ring when someone calls your Google Voice number) and select a type from the 'Phone type' drop-down menu.

Verify your phone. You'll see a numerical code along with a Call Me Now button. When you click the button, we'll call your forwarding phone and ask you to enter the code on the screen so we know the phone number you gave us is the right one.

Congratulations! Your Google number is all set up. You can choose to add more phones to forward to or take a look around the Google Voice inbox.